A recent movement has taken hold throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States, at least, wherein a group of individuals don headphones to which is broadcast music from a proximally located music source, allowing for such a group to enjoy a common musical presentation, but with little to no invasion of undesirable loud noise to other locations nearby. Basically, this development has reduced the typical dance party, rave, disco, whatever wants to call it, from a loud, complicated cacophony of invasive sound to a shared experience through intimately provided music that all (at least some) participants enjoy together without encroaching on the listening pleasure of others. Likewise, such a possible arrangement permits individuals to actually speak to one another on the dance floor without having to shout above the typical din and difficulty loudspeakers and amplifiers can create simply by removing the personal headphones (or possibly just turning them off). Such a revolutionary way of providing group enjoyment without the potential for crowd-deafening shared noise has been making headway throughout the world, growing every year as many planners realize the benefits of permitting full group enjoyment of musical presentations (and still allow for self-expression in terms of dancing, at least, in such an environment) and at locations that in the past were not conducive to such happenings, particularly in late-night and/or urban settings.
The spectator without any headphone in such a setting is provided a unique visual experience to watch groups of people enjoy themselves and undertake dance moves without any clearly distinguished musical source for the spectator to understand such motivations. As such, these headphone-enabled dances, discos, raves, etc., provide more than just an audio means of enjoyment for listeners, but also visual montages of individuals expressing themselves in ways and manners that had not been experienced in the past.
Even more interestingly, such situations have actually led to the utilization of more than one musical source (such as two competing disc jockeys, for instance), further improving on the overall experience for participants and spectators by permitting more than one choice of music at one time. In those situations, multiple channels provide access to either broadcast music source (as, again, these are all wireless devices; it should be well understood that requiring any deliberate and dedicated connections between such headphones and the broadcast music sources would be rather cumbersome, if not impossible, to permit full enjoyment and freedom of the overall experience), thus leading one population of the event area to enjoy one source and the other to enjoy another at the same time. The resultant experience is thus unique for the listeners as one group would move and dance to one song while another group would enjoy a totally different tune; the spectators would also enjoy seeing the resultant chaotic movements (and possibly accompanying singing) of the overall dance floor in relation to such potentially disparate music sources. As such, the overall effect could lead to any number of unique outcomes, with disc jockeys competing for listeners due to their specific broadcast music selections (as one example), to specific groups of listeners providing dance steps in unison for one song with any number of responses in like manner from the other (or, if more than two music sources are present, even more chaos could ensue in such an instance). In other words, the overall experience is heightened for listeners and spectators alike when these headphone-enabled events are provided with multiple broadcast music sources.
The provision of such a multi-listener multiple headphone event has not been a simple endeavor in the past. The proper development of multiple headphones in a single setting that provide simultaneous access to even a single broadcast channel is the first obstacle. As well, such headphones must exhibit sufficient resiliency to undertake repeated use, not to mention continuous and, at times, rather violent movement, a suitable electrical source to ensure sufficient power exists to receive a signal from at least one music source as well as permit a dialed-in volume by the listener (and one that will not easily be disturbed during erratic movements, as alluded to above), as well as the capability to potentially change from one channel to another on demand by the listener. Beyond that, such headphones must also be of suitable comfort for a listener to keep such a device in place potentially for hours during such an event (not to mention, with a suitable dampening mechanism to best prevent extraneous sound from emanating external from the headphone earpieces; with multiple listeners potentially utilizing such headphones, if the bleed of sound from one is of a significant level, then combining the same result with one hundred (or even more) could lead to undesirable levels of noise generation that such a system was intended to prevent. In other words, the basic headphone designs that work to this end are rather difficult to accomplish themselves. Nothing has been proposed to date to move past these initial designs, however, to provide any further beneficial functions.
As such, it is important to realize that the overall effects, as discussed above, associated with these headphone-enabled events are just the start of the potential enjoyment levels participants and spectators alike might have. Raves are (in)famous for involving multi-colored lighting effects, both within the actual arena of enjoyment (through, for instance, synchronized light generation on a stage or overhead), coupled with brightly colored attire, iridescent light sticks, etc., that are worn or held by attendees. The overall effect is, in that situation, more than just a musical show, but an all-encompassing performance involving all participants with sound, light, color, etc., in concert. Although headphone-enabled concerts, discos, etc., provide a certain level of quietude (for spectators and external locations), the capability of incorporating further enhancements to the overall headphone-enabled experience has been limited to these rave-like features (i.e., supplied lighting, contributed clothing, hand-held implements, as examples), rather than involving the music source itself via the actual headphones. The potential to enliven the specific location and enhance the overall enjoyment level through any further effect provided by the multiple headphones in use has not been considered. Although individual headphones have been developed that provide certain visual effects, including lighting, flowing designs, and the like, these issues have not taken into consideration the potential for multi-listener events at all. As well, the designs and circuitry to accord the necessary overall effect to not just a single headphone device, but multiple types on a simultaneous basis, and pegged to either a channel selection or even a received signal to that end, has certainly not been of interest. Furthermore, the ability to provide any headphone device system in a multi-listener format, particularly wherein all such devices are wireless in nature and retain the needed levels of comfort, electronic performance, and music performance, let alone retain a resiliency to survive chaotic movements and other effects on a daily (or nightly or both) basis, and, even more so, allow for cleaning in such a timeframe without any deleterious effects from such a procedure, is not a simple, nor foreseeable end result within this industry. It should not be a surprise, then, that such a wireless headphone device, let alone on overall headphone-enabled multi-listener system, have yet to be provided this unique and growing entertainment area.